


Don't Wake The Baby

by Umbral_Wings



Series: Tales After Dark: Fanfiction Edition [1]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Body Horror, Gen, Horror, Sortof, The family that slays together stays together, features one of my universes, it's a crossover if you squint
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-01
Updated: 2020-10-01
Packaged: 2021-03-08 06:48:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,374
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26967736
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Umbral_Wings/pseuds/Umbral_Wings
Summary: Sam and Dean are driving through the middle of nowhere.And as we all know, spooky stuff happens in nowhere.
Series: Tales After Dark: Fanfiction Edition [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1967923
Comments: 2
Kudos: 2





	Don't Wake The Baby

There is a belief in Japanese folklore generally referred to as “Tsukumogami”: that tools and household objects gain a sort of sentience over time, usually on the 100th year of its existence. Though, perhaps, one hundred years isn’t always required; perhaps objects steeped in an unusual amount of psychic and emotional energy find their souls much sooner.

Little did any of the Winchesters know, and Chuck neglected to mention, was that the very birth of their beloved ‘67 Chevy Impala was christened with blood. The day before it rolled off the production line in Janesville, Wisconsin there was a terrible accident at the factory where a worker by the name of Ellis Marchand had gotten tangled and mangled in the factory’s heavy machinery -in coincidentally close proximity to the Impala’s frame. Those close to Ellis, however, knew about his broken marriage and knew how much on an accident it wasn’t.  
The pressure washer took care of the blood and bits easily enough but the pain remained.

Years later, Mary Winchester sat alone in the drivers’ seat sobbing and terrified at the revelation of her pregnancy along with the implications from her tainted past. And again when John and Sam and Dean sat in the Impala, watching their house burn to the ground with Mary still inside. So many memories and emotions, both good and bad, were etched into Babys’ very being over those long years.  
Eventually the bad began to outweigh the good.

* * *

Baby only ever wanted the best for her owners: they had always taken such good care of her, even going so far as to restore her after that terrible wreck that mangled her much in the same way as poor Ellis. She knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that had been an act of love.  
She wanted to repay them in kind.  
She wanted to let them know how much she loved them back.  
She hated seeing them so sad.  
So she decided to sleep for awhile and come up with a way to help.

Baby awoke some time later to palpable waves of despair rolling off of her two beloved occupants like a suffocating fog; Something must have happened while she slept. No music played and they said not a word, the only sound to hear was the smooth rumble of her well cared for engine… where had the music and laughter gone? Their hope?

She needed to show them that all was not yet lost, no matter what happened; that there was still good in this world and that she loved them dearly always. It was then that she realized which empty desert highway they were on and that it was very much the dead of night. She would have smiled if she could: maybe all they needed was a point of reference to compare their world to… and a little something extra. She’s been all over the country, she knew where all the thin spots in reality were. She knew exactly where to take them and at what time -and the perfect song, the very same song that was playing on the radio in the break room when Ellis died, the same song that played over the speakers when John drove her off the lot.  
She had to act quickly.  
It was time.  
  


* * *

Sam and Dean had been lost in thought for miles unable to escape the devastating memory of recent events. Eventually Sam managed to slip into an uneasy doze, head rested against the cool glass of the passenger window. Dean kept his eyes locked on the road, trying futilely to shake the images that kept flitting unbidden into his mind.

Then suddenly and without warning the Impala momentarily decelerated with a shuddering jerk, startling both brothers into high alert.

“What was that?” Sam asked, failing to hide the anxiety in his voice.

“I don’t know, felt like the engine stuttered for a second.” Dean answered as he scanned the dashboard display, “C’mon, baby, don’t quit on me now.”

“Why’d it do that?”

“I don’t know, it shouldn’t have done that at all – I gave her a tune-up not that long ago…. Seems fine now, I’ll take a look when we stop.”

Sam fixed him with a pensive look before settling back into his seat. Strangely, Dean couldn’t help but notice the steering wheel seemed to turn on its own a microsecond before he adjusted it, the gas pedal moving in tandem with his foot creating a somehow unsettling “effortless” feeling as he drove. He opened his mouth to say something when the radio turned itself on with a loud static blat. The brothers looked at each other and then to the stereo deck. A second later the first morose guitar chords of “House of The Rising Sun” by the Animals began playing over the speakers with crystal clarity. Dean turned the radios’ power knob to off but it remained on so he fiddled with the stations -no change.

“Dean…”

“I know, I know!”

>   
> There is a house in New Orleans  
> They call the Rising Sun  
> and it’s been the ruin of many a poor boy  
> and God I know I’m one

Dean made to pull over but this time the car didn’t obey. Instead, Baby gradually began to pick up speed along the empty stretch of road.

“Pull over!”

“What the hell do you think I’m trying to do?? I’m standing on the fucking break!”

> My mother was a tailor  
> She sewed my new blue jeans  
> My father was a gambling man  
> down in New Orleans

Both brothers got the idea to bail out of the car at the same, a foolish move but this was a desperate moment, and they found the door handles wouldn’t function; slamming their shoulders against the doors did nothing. The steering wheel moved on its own accord, Baby keeping herself straight and steady -had to keep her precious occupants safe after all- and accelerated as fast as she could go hoping it would be enough to pierce the veil in time.

> Now the only thing a gambler needs  
> is a suitcase and a trunk  
> and the only time he’s satisfied  
> is when he’s all drunk

Dean saw the faintly shimmering curtain of non-color they were hurtling towards a second before Sam did and a sickening mixture of dread and fear washed over them both as they connected with it, fully expecting to be crushed like a soda can. Instead the empty expanse of moonlight desert suddenly blinked away into a rolling landscape of sparsely wooded hills shrouded in darkness.

> Oh mother tell your children  
> not to do what I have done  
> Spend your lives in sin and misery  
> in the House of the Rising Sun

Baby eased to a stop in the middle of the now dirt road, left herself idling and shut off the radio. She could rest easy now knowing that her mission was complete for the time being and now they would finally be able to see.  
The brothers exchanged a glance and bolted out of the car, the fact they could easily escape this time didn’t slip their notice. Now in full hunter mode they quickly took stock of their surroundings: a moonless, starless, cloudless sky; patches of enormous mushrooms dotted the landscape, swaying in an absent breeze; a gaping chasm bisected the road behind them and a thick, cloying mist slowly rolling towards their direction from up ahead.

“What the fuck just happened?” Sam asked, running his fingers through his hair, “Where the hell are we?”

“I dunno, Sammy.” He replied, thinking a moment, “Okay… so this isn’t Purgatory, it feels different. So does Hell so I think we can rule that out.”

“And that leaves us with what, exactly?” Sam asked flippantly, casting the occasional glance backwards.

Both brothers noticed something almost simultaneously: Sam saw the nearby patch of inky black mushrooms were creeping closer to every time he looked away; A split second later Dean saw the countless faces in the fog, all twisted into expressions of agony and rage.

“Dean get in the car.”

It took a moment for Sams’ words to register, “...What?”

“Get in the fucking car.”

With no hesitation they both jumped back into the car, slamming and locking the doors.

“You wanna tell me why we’re getting back into my possessed c-GCK!”

Deans’ question was suddenly cut off by black, slimy, rope-like tendrils from the mushrooms now right next to the car wrapping around his neck. The tendrils (or vines or whatever they were) were trying to pull him up and out of Babys’ partly open window. Sam shouted his brother’s name, reaching for the knife on his belt when the driver side window shot violently upward, severing the vines with a disgusting squelch and cracking the glass. More vines felt their way across the outside of the car, searching for a way in while the many-faced fog swept over the area.

“Are you okay? Sam shakily asked.

“Yeah.” Dean coughed, throwing the vine in the back seat, “We gotta find a way out of here.”

It was at that moment the fog found its way into the car through the air vents, seeping in and forming a vaguely hand-shaped wisp that grasped at Sam’s face. Baby’s engine turned over, coming to life with a roar. The radio came on, blaring a cheery Elvis song of all things. The car took off down the road like a shot, tearing unerringly through the fog while Sam and Dean scrambled to get the interior sealed up. Wailing screaming shapes in the fog clawed at the car, peeling the paint and rusting the metal with their decaying touch.

This wasn’t good.  
This was not good.  
Baby didn’t understand what went wrong: the thin spot in reality she went through was supposed to lead to a quiet, peaceful world where her boys could finally be safe, not…. This. Whatever world this was it didn’t feel like an alternate earth, it felt foreign -it felt warped and evil. She had to get them out of here fast… she could feel the very essence of this world changing her.

* * *

Castiel sat restlessly at the large table amid scattered, haphazard stacks of papers, scrolls and tomes. He’d been searching relentlessly for days for the boys -even going so far as to conscript the assistance (after much deliberation and arguing) of Crowley and Rowena. Rowena looked through a massive spell tome on a nearby table trying to find another spell to try; she didn’t much care for the Winchester brothers but the fact that her magic wasn’t producing any results grated on her to no end -it was the principle of the thing. Crowley, on the other hand, had come to care for the brothers the way one would become invested in the neighborhood raccoons… plus they did happen to be useful from time to time. Their respective thoughts were interrupted by the sound of the bunker door opening slowly with a low groan that sounded somehow ominous as it shattered the quiet of the bunker. The unlikely trio looked up to see the very people they’d been breaking their necks to try and find walking in quietly as if it were just another day but something was off… their gait seemed disjointed and unnatural as though they were unused to their own legs and both brothers kept their gaze on the floor; Sams’ hair hid his face and Deans’ was obscured by a filthy grey hoodie.

“Dean?” Castiel asked, moving quickly to their sides, “Sam? You’ve been gone for weeks.”

“Castiel…” Rowena interrupted, standing cautiously and backing up a little, “Somethings wrong.”

Crowley closed the book he’d been skimming and stood, “Moose?” he asked, searching their faces for clues, “Squirrel?”

The brothers said nothing, slowing to a stop in the middle of the room.

“All of your phones that weren’t left here said you were out of the service area.” Castiel barreled on, heedless of Rowenas’ warning. “:Where were you? What happened?”

Both brothers lifted their heads and the same time and dead silence filled the room: Their eyes were pupilless and had taken on a flaxen gold color like corn silk, the whites of their eyes now a ruddy grey. Sam had weird whitish markings all over his skin that looked like wispy, spidery cracks and Dean bore livid puffy veins all along his flesh like snaking vines.

“Giraffe….” Crowley warned, “get away from them now.”

Rowena raised her hands to cast a spell, reciting the verbal components but Sam attacked with wicked speed, great whorls of screaming white wind ebbed from him melting her skin and clothes like they’d been doused with acid. Almost simultaneously, Dean raised his hand toward Castiel who had the misfortune of being closest and thick, slimy growths shot out from his hand and forearm, tearing holes in the hoodie and jacket he wore. The vines plunged into Castiels’ chest, crushing bones and organs in their path and siphoning the holy light from the angels’ very being.

Crowley, ever the pragmatic one, had already beaten a hasty retreat cursing the bunker for its thrice damned wards that prevented him from simply teleporting away. He had cut through the garage after finding the bunker door sealed shut by something he didn’t waste time guessing at. He stopped a moment to look for an exit, ignoring the screams of his mother and the angel echoing through the corridors.

He spun around to face the sudden loud -distorted- rumble of a car engine; Deans’ Impala sat idling at the far end of the garage looking rusted and warped, the headlights gave off an eerie, amber glow.

“Oh you’ve got to be fucking kidding me…”

* * *

For years -decades- after that night, beings of all kinds would whisper and speculate about what happened that could make the King of Hell, one of the most powerful witches on Earth, the Rogue Angel and the Winchesters vanish without a trace. Some say you can see an old rusty black Impala on the road, always with five people in it. They’ll not pull over if you aren’t alone.

Pray that you never see them when you’re alone.

By the way… do you hear any cars nearby?

**Author's Note:**

> I gotta admit it's been difficult getting back into writing lately and this fic turned out much more rough than I'd hoped. Nevertheless, I hope you still enjoyed it. The song featured here always gives me the heebs when I listen to it and I have no reasonable explanation as to why.... do any of you have a song like that?  
> Feel free to leave comments, questions and criticism.
> 
> Song is "The House of The Rising Sun" as performed by the Animals. I do not own any element of the song.  
> Supernatural characters, imagery and related elements are property of.... whoever the hell owns them. It ain't me.  
> "The Other World" and related elements are my own original work. All rights reserved.


End file.
